I am a quilter - a recently-retired woman living with my husband in the Nebraska Panhandle. We are surrounded by beautiful semi-arid ranch country, and treeless hills and fields under incredibly wide blue skies. We are located far from the upheaval found often in large towns or cities. I am blessed to have delicious time to quilt and to appreciate my peaceful moments in an unpeaceful world.

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Turned out better than I thought it would!

Once again, I am saying, "Hey, it's a whole lot better than I thought it would be!" One of these days I'll stop doubting myself. Each time I watch one of my quilting DVDs, I am strengthened, and have more courage. The machine quilting turned out good -- again, I doubted myself. A year ago, this would have scared me, but my gosh, it's easy now! I started that clover thing in the border and it practically sewed itself and was done in half an hour! The quilt is 48 x 60. I am very pleased with my decision to stop wanting and whining for a long arm, and learn to use what I have! 8-)) For those of you still reticent to do your own quilting on your DSM, just start practicing! By the time you are through with a small quilt, you will have mastered whatever design you started with, and will be ready to start another. Invest in yourself!!! for a PatsyThompsonDesign.com DVD, or a PajamaQuilter DVD and you will see what I mean. Use a busy backing, and a blendy top thread, and you'll have a great start. Don't let all those "How-To Books" scare you off. When your project is finished, YOU might just say "Hey, it turned out better than I thought it would"!

18 comments:

Thanks for sharing. I am just not a very good machine quilter. I do try, but it just seems like either the machine gets away from me, or I lose the flow. I think I will check out Patsy Thompson Designs. What is Pajama Quilter? I tried to click it here, but it does not bring anything up.

Thanks again for the encouragement. I agree that we can do this w/o a longarm!

My 15 yr old granddaughter came over while I was doing free motion on my frame. I asked if she wanted to do a row. She said sure and proceeded to do better than I had been doing. Kids don't know when something is supposed to be difficult and just jump in. I wonder when we lose that attitude? BTW, her mother wouldn't try. Afraid to make a mess.

Yep, practice is the only secret. I avoided doing things ont he longarm but finally accepted that I jsut had to jump in and do it. By the time I would get to the end of the quilt I would have the technique under control.

This quilt is awesome and someone is going to be very happy! I love to turn up the music and abide by the Nike slogan of "Just Do It". My first quilting instructor told me that no one ever gets good without practice, musicians, athletes and quilters! After all these years, I still consider it practice. :-) And sometimes I amaze myself.

Nice work! You are so right. You just have to jump in and do it. Then the doing just carries you along, you're having fun, the creativity and talent flow and you get to be good before you even know it.